7 Ways To Keep On Top Of Your Bills

Struggling to keep on top of bill payments? Late payments to bill providers could result in you paying unnecessary interest. Here are 7 strategies to ensure that your bills always get paid on time.

Organise all your bill payments to come out on the same day

Having a ‘bill day’ each month can make it much easier to budget without being ambushed by a surprise bill. This may involve contacting your providers to see if they can move payment dates. This includes landlords, insurers, utility bill providers and lenders. If you’re paid monthly, you could arrange bill day straight after pay day. With all the bills out the way, the rest of the money can then be used at your own leisure for the rest of the month.

Install an energy monitor

An energy monitor allows you to see exactly how much money you’re spending on gas and electricity. Smart monitors can transmit this data to your bill provider. These monitors could help you to budget your energy use and prevent high bills each month.

Consolidate your debts

Keeping on top of lots of debt payments can also be difficult. This include a mortgage, a car loan, credit card bills and student debts. Not paying debts could result in extra charges or even lead to a debt collection agency coming around and seizing belongings. By shopping around for the best debt relief program, you could help to prevent this. The likes of debt consolidation loans can pay of all your debts so that you’re only paying one debt each month to one lender.

Consider insurance scheme bundles

If you’ve taken out lots of different insurance schemes, it might also be beneficial to consider an umbrella scheme that covers all of them and goes out as one monthly payment. Some insurers may be able to provide health insurance, pet insurance, vehicle insurance, life insurance and property insurance all under one plan.

Opt pay-as-you-go

Some people view pay-as-you-go schemes as a punishment, but they can often be more sensible for those that find it hard to budget for monthly bill payments. Pay-as-you-go phone contracts and payed energy metres allow you to put money in as you earn it so that you don’t have to deal with late payments. It’s less convenient practically, but more convenient financially.

Keep bill documents organised

If you have to rummage through a drawer to find each bill, it could be worth buying a personal organiser to keep your bill documents in. You can buy personal finance organisers with labelled dividers for different categories such as ‘home’, ‘car’ and ‘medical’.

Create a bank account for bills

It could be worth creating a separate account for bills so that you can save up money for these expenses. If you live with a partner or flatmates, this could be a joint account that you can both contribute to (by giving everyone access, you can then see who is and isn’t paying their contribution to bills).